Optimizing Transmission Lengths for Limited Feedback with Non-Binary LDPC Examples

This paper presents a general approach for optimizing the number of symbols in increments (packets of incremental redundancy) in a feedback communication system with a limited number of increments. This approach is based on a tight normal approximation on the rate for successful decoding. Applying this approach to a variety of feedback systems using non-binary (NB) low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes shows that greater than 90% of capacity can be achieved with average blocklengths fewer than 500 transmitted bits. One result is that the performance with ten increments closely approaches the performance with an infinite number of increments. The paper focuses on binary- input additive-white Gaussian noise (BI-AWGN) channels but also demonstrates that the normal approximation works well on examples of fading channels as well as high-SNR AWGN channels that require larger QAM constellations. The paper explores both variable-length feedback codes with termination (VLFT) and the more practical variable length feedback (VLF) codes without termination that require no assumption of noiseless transmitter confirmation. For VLF we consider both a two-phase scheme and CRC-based scheme

Variable-length Convolutional Coding for Short Blocklengths with Decision Feedback

This paper presents a variable-length decision-feedback scheme that uses tail-biting convolutional codes and the tail-biting Reliability-Output Viterbi Algoritm (ROVA). Comparing with recent results in finite-blocklength information theory, simulation results for both the BSC and the AWGN channel show that the decision-feedback scheme using ROVA can surpass the random-coding lower bound on throughput for feedback codes at average blocklengths less than 100 symbols. This paper explores ROVA-based decision feedback both with decoding after every symbol and with decoding limited to a small number of increments. The performance of the reliability-based stopping rule with the ROVA is compared to retransmission decisions based on CRCs. For short blocklengths where the latency overhead of the CRC bits is severe, the ROVA-based approach delivers superior rates.Comment: Accepted for publication to IEEE Transactions on Communications. 15 single-spaced, double-column pages; 8 figures; 3 table